Thursday, January 12, 2012

U.S. Life Expectancy Reaches New High of 78.7 Yrs.

Life expectancy in the U.S. increased to a new all-time high of 78.7 years in 2010, according to data released yesterday by the government. The chart above shows the significant correlation between real GDP per capita and life expectancy in the U.S. from 1929 to 2010.

For a longer interactive graphic from Gapminder that covers the period from 1800 to 2010 showing the relationship between U.S. life expectancy and real GDP per capita, go here.

17 Comments:

One should note this is the Natural Log of GDP per capita. The Log of GDP per capita would be even more useful, demonstrating very clearly that for every order of magnitude increase in GDP per capita we live 20 years longer. There is nothing proving this will continue in the future forever but I wouldn't miss a bet on it.

Actually there was a big increase in life expectancy from 1900 to 1990it increased from 47.3 to 75.4 yearsan average of .3 years per yearsince then it has increased to 78.7an increase of .17 years per year.so the increase is really slowing as one would expect from the law of diminishing returns.Qatar has per capita GDP of $179,000and life expectancy of 76 male 80 femalego figure!